Last summer’s Bay harvest of 37 million reds was the second largest in 20 years. The region’s 12 major processors said that 71 percent of the drift fleet’s nearly 14-hundred fishermen delivered a record 123 million pounds of chilled sockeye, a 40 percent increase from the previous year. Chilling for 858 Bristol Bay setnetters dropped by three percent.

Last year also saw a big shift away from putting red salmon into cans, focusing instead on higher value fillets and headed/gutted fish whole fish. The canned pack dropped to just 27 percent, while H&G fresh increased eight-fold to 14 million pounds. Sockeye salmon fillet production doubled to 50 million pounds.

Bristol Bay fishermen averaged $.76 a pound for their sockeyes last summer and chilling bonuses increased a nickel to $0.16 a pound. All signs point to higher prices this year and a rising tide lifts all boats. Andy Wink – “When the base price in 2015 was 50 cents at Bristol Bay and they had a large harvest, sockeye prices in other areas fell and we also saw coho prices come way down. It’s a market moving fishery and that is why it affects so many other Alaska fishermen.”